ELIZABETH WARREN on the cover of Bloomberg Businesweek -- Drake Bennett: "Warren is not waiting for permission to do the job she may never get. She and her small team have hired hundreds of people, at a recent clip of more than 80 per month. The [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] has already outgrown its office space and is divided between two buildings in downtown Washington—with branches to be opened across the country. A fledgling staff of researchers is cranking out the CFPB’s first reports, and its first bank examiners are being trained. Meanwhile, the office softball team has compiled a 2-3 record.... While Washington bickers, Warren has built the CFPB largely to her specs, and almost entirely free of interference from Congress and the Administration, which devotes most of its attention to fixing the economy. Few Cabinet secretaries can claim to have left as indelible a mark on the departments they lead as Elizabeth Warren has already left on the one she doesn’t." See the cover. http://politi.co/oDYx1N

--President Obama, in response to the tweet, “What mistakes have you made in handling this recession and what would you do differently?”: “One would have been to explain to the American people that it was going to take a while for us to get out of this. I think even I did not realize the magnitude, because most economists didn’t realize the magnitude, of the recession until fairly far into it, maybe two or three months into my presidency where we started realizing that we had lost 4 million jobs before I was even sworn in.. And so I think people may not have been prepared for how long this was going to take and why we were going to have to make some very difficult decisions and choices. And I take responsibility for that, because setting people’s expectations is part of how you end up being able to respond well.”

TIME cover, “THE FUTURE OF FISH: Can farming save the last wild food? … The End of the Line,” by Bryan Walsh: “Humans have been raising some fish in farms for almost as long as we've been fishing, beginning with Chinese fishponds 4,000 years ago. But it's only in the past 50 years that aquaculture has become a true industry. … Today about half the seafood consumed around the world comes from farms … [T]he rapid growth of aquaculture has been accompanied by environmental costs. … But unless you can convince 1.3 billion Chinese — not to mention everyone else in a growing world — that they don't deserve the occasional sushi roll, aquaculture will keep growing.” http://ti.me/rdjUTB

Good Thursday morning. EXCLUSIVE -- MICHELE BACHMANN’s FIRST AD – Maggie Haberman: “Bachmann is going up in Iowa with the first television ad of her presidential campaign, a 30-second spot titled ‘Waterloo’ that will start running statewide today. The bio spot, produced by Strategy Group Media, features a direct-to-camera Bachmann talking about growing up in Waterloo, her five children, her foster kids and her professional life. ‘I know we can’t keep spending money that we don’t have,’ Bachmann says. ‘I fought AGAINST the wasteful bailout – against the stimulus. I – will – not – vote to increase the debt ceiling.’ The commercial is upbeat, with a strumming guitar overlay. She is making a serious push to win the Ames Straw Poll on Aug. 13, and even some Democrats are taking note that she is running a professional campaign so far, with crisp visuals at her stump stops following an effective rollout.” The slate at the end: “Michele Bachmann for President: the unifying choice that will beat Obama.” YouTube http://bit.ly/pIB5ey

TOP TALKER – Boston Globe p. 1, “Father spoke of having Obama adopted,” by Sally Jacobs [who wrote a long profile of the president’s late father in The Globe in Oct. 2008]: “The elder Barack H. Obama, a sophomore at the University of Hawaii, had come under scrutiny by federal immigration officials … Obama declared that [he and his wife] intended to put their [coming] child [the future president] up for adoption. … [The] memo … is one of dozens of documents in the elder Obama’s ‘alien’ file released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request made in the course of research on a biography of Obama’s father. Obama was visiting the United States on a foreign student visa which required him to apply for an annual extension of his stay during the five years he was attending US colleges. … Robert L. Gibbs … said at the time the document was released that President Obama had never been told that his mother had considered putting him up for adoption. Nor, Gibbs said, was Obama previously aware of the INS memo.” http://bo.st/qQ78A8

--SNEAK PEEK – From a forthcoming book by Globe reporter Sally H. Jacobs, “The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father,” out Tuesday from PublicAffairs (297 pp.): “[President] Obama’s paternal roots lie in far away Africa, specifically in the western region of Kenya … [D]uring Obama’s determined march toward the White House in 2008 not a great deal was said about his father. … [T]he first Barack Obama had lived a disorganized life … The name of Barack Hussein Obama II, the second son, crops up only incidentally in the bulging pink case files in Nairobi’s High Court. … [The elder] Obama’s impact has proved to be profoundly greater than he could have imagined. Although he never knew it, his legacy was to produce the most powerful man in the world. …

“On the back shelves of the Kenya National Archives in Nairobi there were hundreds of memos he wrote while working for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and thick bundles of the minutes of meetings held during his years at the Kenya Tourist Development Corporation. In a storage facility in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, where the paper records of what was once called the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service are stored, there is a folder bearing the name Barack H. Obama, alien registration number A11938537, which contained memos stretching from the time he arrived in Honolulu in 1959 until he [left] Cambridge, Massachusetts … in 1964. … There were a dozen blue aerogrammes about Obama in the archives of Syracuse University and letters he had written to the popular Kenyan nationalist Tom Mboya store at Stanford University.” $17.28 on Amazon http://amzn.to/r4yaue

DRIVING THE DAY – “Obama goes for bigger deal,” by David Rogers: “President Obama meets [at 11 a.m.] with fractious House and Senate leaders, trying to sell a bolder approach to the debt reduction debate … With June’s unemployment figures due out Friday, the economic impact is central to the debate over what part revenues will play in what the White House now envisions as a much bigger undertaking than a simple dollar-for-dollar bargain to get past the August debt ceiling vote. Rather than $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction, the administration is aiming higher toward as much as $4 trillion over 10 years, and this increases the likelihood that some commitment to tax reform must be part of the mix, in hopes of lifting the economy and generating revenues for the future.” http://bit.ly/qitdNV

--David Plouffe, White House senior adviser, to a Bloomberg breakfast hosted by Al Hunt: “[T]his is a rare moment. They don't come around all that often, when you seem to have bipartisan support and desire to try and to do something meaningful on the deficit. … [I]f you're talking about something significant over the next 10 years and then something even more significant in the 10 to 20 years after that, in terms of deficit reduction, you're not going to get that without domestic, the Pentagon, entitlement, revenues. … We’re not going to get tax reform DONE in the next, you know, month. But this is another moment of opportunity, where there seems to be an enormous, I think, consistency amongst the parties that this would be a moment, over the next period of months, to try and do something on tax reform of a significant nature. And I think that’s something the president feels we have to seize.”

--PLAYBOOK FACTS OF LIFE: How this all gets incorporated in the context of the deal is as much a part of the negotiations as the numbers themselves.

–WSJ lead, “Movement in Budget Impasse: Big Ideas on the Table Include Social Security, Major Revamp of Tax Code,” by Naftali Bendavid, Janet Hook and Carol E. Lee: “Discussions … have touched on changes to all three major safety-net programs—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid … Participants in the debt talks had been weighing changes to Medicare and Medicaid, but tinkering with Social Security had not been part of the discussion until recently. Such a move would be anathema to many Democrats. One Democratic official said Messrs. Obama and Boehner worked through the Independence Day weekend to craft a grand deal, and that the White House proposed ‘serious things’ regarding Medicare and Social Security, including means-testing Medicare—that is, providing different levels of benefits depending on a beneficiary's financial status.”

TALKING BACK TO THE PAPERS – WashPost lead: “In debt talks, Obama offers Social Security cuts”: “President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue. … As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security.” http://wapo.st/qQeQ8K

--A senior administration official says the story is oversold: “The President put on the table in the SOTU efforts to strengthen social security in a balanced, bipartisan way that doesn't slash benefits, so this is not new or inconsistent with that.”

** A message from AIDS Healthcare Foundation: Never before have we had such effective tools to fight AIDS. Unfortunately, not since Reagan have we had worse leadership on AIDS. Roundly criticized for his administration’s shortcomings on global AIDS, Obama’s efforts domestically have been equally dismal. Learn more and take action: www.changeAIDSObama.org. **

BILL CLINTON: OBAMA CAN MAKE FIRMER CASE – Darren Samuelsohn: “Former President Clinton said Wednesday that Democrats should have done a better job defending the health reform law in last year’s elections, telling a group of college progressives that the Democrats allowed Republicans to accuse them of cutting Medicare. At a conference sponsored by Campus Progress, an organization of liberal activists, Clinton said the Republicans ‘ran to the left of Democrats on Medicare’ and that Democrats allowed the attacks to overshadow changes in the health care law that strengthened the program. … Clinton said the health care law was one of a series of accomplishments Democrats could have defended better in the mid-term elections, including the stimulus, the auto industry bailout and the overhaul of financial regulations. ‘You've got to do more to connect the dots.’” http://bit.ly/nQMK1Y

ROMNEY FELL SHORT OF GOAL – Jonathan Martin: “Mitt Romney disclosed today that he raised $18.25 million in his initial fundraising report, but his goal for the first half of 2011 was $50 million, according to an email sent by a Romney consultant to a potential state finance aide at the end of last year. Don Stirling, a Utah-based Romney finance consultant, sent a message in late-December to another western GOP strategist outlining compensation plans and fundraising targets. ‘National 6-month goal: $50 million,’ he wrote.” http://bit.ly/pICrlM “[A] pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, has sprung up and already raised $12 million.” http://bit.ly/nGXBSM So the two together are $30.25 million – far short of initial hopes.

--JEANNE CUMMINGS makes her Bloomberg debut: "Republican Fundraising Slow for 2012 Presidential Candidates": "In the first test of the 2012 presidential campaign, the Republican field of candidates is lagging behind the fundraising pace of both Democratic and Republican contenders at the start of the 2008 campaign. Indicating a sign of possible difficulty, the Republican candidates are beginning their campaigns with less money than the front-runners reported at this time four years ago. This month, just one Republican -- Mitt Romney -- announced that he had raised close to the double-digit range achieved by candidates from both parties at this point in the last presidential election cycle."

THE PRESIDENT’S (AND V.P.’s) DAY: “At 9:30 a.m., “the President and the Vice President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing, and the President will meet with senior advisors in the Oval Office. … [At] 11 a.m., the President and the Vice President will meet with Congressional Leadership in the Cabinet Room to discuss the ongoing efforts to find a balanced approach to deficit reduction. There will be a pool spray at the top of the meeting. Expected attendees include: Speaker John Boehner; Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader; Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican Leader; Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader; Representative Eric Cantor, Majority Leader; Senator Dick Durbin, Majority Whip; Senator Jon Kyl, Republican Whip; Representative Steny Hoyer, Democratic Whip.

“In the afternoon, the President will participate in an Ambassador Credentialing Ceremony in the Oval Office. At this event, the President will receive the credentials from foreign Ambassadors recently posted in Washington. The presentation of credentials is a traditional ceremony that marks the formal beginning of an Ambassador’s service in Washington. This event is closed press. The following Ambassadors will attend: Ambassador Jose Lampe Cuisia, Jr, Republic of the Philippines; Ambassador Cuong Quoc Nguyen, Socialist Republic of Vietnam; Ambassador Petr Gandalovic, Czech Republic; Ambassador Anibal de Jesus de Castro Rodriguez, Dominican Republic.”

MEDIWATCH – DAN BALZ is named The Washington Post’s first-ever “Chief Correspondent,” per a memo to the staff, posted by Keach Hagey: “This designation reflects Dan’s great stature and many accomplishments over three decades, as well as his ambition to widen his range and do even more. In this new role, Dan will become a more formal member of our leadership team, participating in decisions about the future of our journalism and our path as a newsroom. He will attend the weekly senior editors’ meeting and participate in other forums where discussions take place about our work and direction. As Chief Correspondent, Dan will have the latitude to go beyond politics, to collaborate with other writers, to nurture some, to edit some, and to develop projects of his own. But first there is politics. In the short term, Dan will continue to chronicle the presidential campaign as it unfolds, as well as play a central role in the architecture of our 2012 coverage.

“Working with National Political Editor Steven Ginsberg and Deputy National Political Editors Terry Samuel and Rachel Van Dongen, he will be directly involved in the crucial decisions about structure, deployments, projects and daily coverage. After 2012, Dan’s curiosity and wide-ranging interests will guide him. For those who are unfamiliar with Dan’s biography, he arrived at The Post in 1978 by way of the National Journal. He has been the Post’s national editor, its national political editor, a White House correspondent, a national bureau correspondent based in the Southwest, and for many years our lead political writer. … Dan has been a guiding force and inspiration to many in our newsroom. Tapping his wisdom, experience and institutional knowledge, in a more defined way, will only make us better.”

DESSERT – Newsweek’s “First Annual Rankings” of colleges – BEST SCHOOLS FOR FUTURE POWER BROKERS (takes into account future presidents and senators, Fortune 100 CEOs, Forbes billionaires, undergrads going to top grad schools (“After Harvard and Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, which includes the topnotch Wharton School [‘world’s first collegiate business school’], has graduated the most billionaires”):

* A message from AIDS Healthcare Foundation: President Obama’s failure to lead on AIDS has resulted in the most prolonged AIDS drug access crisis ever. More than 8,600 low-income patients without health insurance are on waiting lists to receive AIDS treatment through AIDS Drug Assistance Programs nationwide. It has never been this bad or this long. Such a public health crisis is especially shameful in light of new NIH research showing that patients on AIDS treatment are 96% less likely to pass the virus on to others. President Obama’s failure to lead on AIDS not only threatens the lives of thousands of Americans living with AIDS, but also hurts efforts to prevent the spread of the disease.

President Obama has dashed the hopes of thousands of Americans living with HIV/AIDS in need of treatment. Learn more and take action: www.changeAIDSObama.org. **

****** A message from the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates: UAE airlines have received or have on order more than 800 Boeing aircraft. Emirates is the world's largest operator of Boeing 777s and has 40 Boeing 787-10s currently on order. Flydubai operates an all-Boeing fleet of planes and has a total of 361 Boeing 737s on order. Etihad operates 24 Boeing 777s with 25 more on order, and has an additional $8.7 billion order for Boeing 787-10s. UAE airlines now serve 11 US gateway cities from Dubai and Abu Dhabi with more than 250 weekly nonstop flights. http://politi.co/2AtLDMj ******

About The Author

Mike Allen is the chief White House correspondent for POLITICO. He comes to us from Time magazine where he was their White House correspondent. Prior to that, Allen spent six years at The Washington Post, where he covered President Bush's first term, Capitol Hill, campaign finance, and the Bush, Gore and Bradley campaigns of 2000. Before turning to national politics, he covered schools and local governments in rural counties outside Fredericksburg, Va., for The Free Lance-Star, then wrote about Doug Wilder, Oliver North, Chuck Robb and the Bobbitts for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, where he nurtured police sources on overnight ride-alongs through housing projects. Allen also covered Mayor Giuliani, the Connecticut statehouse and the wacky rich of Greenwich for The New York Times. Before moving to The Times, he did stints in the Richmond and Alexandria bureaus of The Washington Post. Allen grew up in Orange County, Calif., and has a B.A. from Washington and Lee University, where he majored in politics and journalism.